The Good, Bad & the Ugly of Blending

Our goal for a blend is a very simple goal; achieve a more complete, complex and pleasing coffee experience than can be gotten from brewing single origin alone. Blending can be fun.

When we are working on a custom blend, the first thing we do is figure out what the strengths of our coffees are and then select the ones that we think will complement one another without over powering those qualities. The second step is the process of deciding what percentage we will use of each coffee. It is a trial and error kind of thing. You have an idea of what you think will work together and then you start mixing it up a bit. One of our favorite ways to create a blend is to brew a strong pot of each of the single origins and with a teaspoon and cup measure in some of each, taste, let it cool in the cup and taste again. If we like it, we work it over to see if there is a better combination.

There are coffees that work so well together the blends have become famous, such as Mocha Java. But the one thing you need to know is everyone’s Mocha Java could taste different. It just depends on the coffee that is select from each of those regions.

We also blend because we have gotten a large group of clients that love there fresh roasted coffee all day, but don’t really want to stay up all night. So we do some very good half-caf blends. Now this takes time to perfect what to do. Because a decaffeinated coffee require more care in roasting the regular coffees, it is best to roast them separately. We like to call this a Mélange, which is a blend of coffees that have each been roasted individually. They could have been roasted to a different degree, some light, some dark or from different origins. Mélange is fun to say, so when talking about blends I make sure I work it into the conversation.

Espresso blending can be quit the art. It can be a blend of three to seven different coffees, a combination of different origins and/or roasting levels. Each one is there for a reason, not just hap hazard added. Finding the right coffees for most roasters is an ongoing endeavor. A good espresso will make a big difference in your coffee based drinks. When you find one you will know it.
I think this was a short and sweet description of the GOOD of blending.

Now we can move onto the BAD of blending. I guess the first BAD of blending would be, for just the sake of blending. From a marketing perspective a larger number of choices with cool names can be good for sales, but not so good for taste. If a roaster has purchase say 4 coffees and create as many combinations as he can come up with, that is a lot of blend choices, but not necessarily good choices. The number of blends offered isn’t important, but what you achieve from that blend sure is.

Now this is just an observation from our time in the coffee business. Many people think that all coffees are blends and they are under the assumption that a blend is better than a single origin. NOT TRUE! A blend is only as good as the carefully select coffees used to create that blend, and the skill of the roaster that created it.

I guess my second thought on the BAD of blending would have to be if you blended a coffee that was so complex with so many things going on that you would miss them because you stuck it in a blend. Don’t let anyone tell you there isn’t a coffee out there that shouldn’t be included in a blend. In my opinion they are wrong. There are some “out of this world” single origin coffees and I wish I could afford to buy all of them. To truly experience them, they should be brewed alone, but shared with another coffee lover.

What would be the UGLY of blending? I am telling you this does happens. All of the coffee from a region is purchased by a large roaster all mixed together; it doesn’t matter what quality or defect is in the bean. It could have been processed wrong by the farmer, have molds, been a bad crop, handled badly coming into the US, allowing it to pick up some very nasty taste along the way, but then it is all roasted into one blend. Now that is scary. What is in your cup????

I just thought of another UGLY, you could call this the Lie Blend. They call it by a well known name such as Kona Blend or Jamaican Blue Mountain Blend. Since there are no regulations out there telling you what percentage of a coffee needs to be in a blend to use that coffee as the enticer, you might think it is mostly the enticer coffee that is in the blend, but it could be 5% for all you know. Check the price, there is the tell.

I was reading some stuff on blending the other day and came across another reason to blend. It is an old-crop/new-crop blend. Right a first I thought, well that is a way to hide the fact that you have a bag of old flat coffee sitting in your shop. So I read on, the author said, “you can obtain a fuller, more balanced version of the particular coffee’s taste than could be obtained by roasting either new or old-crop alone. I still need to think on this one. Our goal is to use up a coffee before it becomes old-crop. So it is not an experiment we have done to see what we think.

Blending or Single Origin coffees, it is still a raging battle between the Coffee Purist and the Blend Enthusiast. However what really matters is it a good fresh roasted coffee bean that has been handled and processed well? What is in your cup?

I know the picture is cheesy, couldn't help myself. Click on the picture, do you recognize it, is your age showing?